Europe is in the middle of a heatwave, with record air temperatures for May in many countries making it feeling more like the height of summer, rather than late spring.
The UK recorded an air temperature of 35ºC this week, 2ºC higher than the country’s previous high for this month, while Ireland’s air temperature also rose more than a degree above its record for May. The Hungarian weather service, HungaroMet, announced on Monday that Budepest’s temperature record had reached a new high of 32.2ºC. And in southern and central Europe, Italy, Spain, Germany and Switzerland also registered unseasonably hot air temperatures.
The heatwave is reflected in this satellite image, which shows daytime land surface temperatures. During summer, daytime land surface temperatures can be considerably higher than air temperature, with surfaces such as rock and soil retaining heat.
The image was captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-3 mission on Tuesday 26 May. Sentinel-3’s radiometer captures data over land and sea. Over continents, it is able to monitor land surface temperatures and can be used to monitor wildfires, map how land is used and the state of vegetation, as well as measure the height of rivers and lakes.